I tend to associate comfort food with weekend days …and because I usually do not plan our meals as good as weekdays’ meals the “weekend / Friday night comfort foods ” end up full of calories but without much nutrients, lefting me/us feeling heavy, bloated, cranky.

This Friday I decided to address this preparing a hearty but also comforting meal for Friday night.

Here is my recipe and some tips and tweaks to it:

Ingredients:

Kale; 1 cup: Benefits of kale are so many but just to mention a few: high in fiber so good to “detox”, in calcium and Vitamins C and K and Iron. Omit this ingredient if you are taking blood thinners.

(tweak 1: can replace for spinach or a blend of kale and swiss chard that you can buy at your local store)

Mushrooms any type; one cup. One cup of grilled portabella mushrooms and one cup of stir-fried shiitake mushrooms both provide about 3 grams of fiber.

Pepper; 1 small. Peppers are well known for their amount of Beta Carotens and Vit B6, also sulfur that has shown to prevent some types of cancer. Lastly it contains Lutein that our eyes need to keep healthy and avoid Macular degeneration and Cataracts. I chose red or oranges to add color to the recipe.

Onion; 1 small. The phytochemicals in onions along with their vitamin C help improve immunity. They also contain chromium, which assists in regulating blood sugar.

In a sauce pan put your coconut oil to heat, add onions finely chopped and pepper. If you find you need more “liquid” as the veggies are getting too dry, you can either add more coconut oil or if you prefer to lower the calories or not to add more “nutty” flavour add canola oil.

Once they are almost transparent in color, add the mushrooms, cover and a few mins after add the kale hand cut in about 3×3 cm (say you cut each big leaf in three, smaller ones in two). Cover again and turn off the heat after a minute or so.

Remove from heat. Can add some salt and/or pepper to taste.

You can serve it by itself or with a cup size portion of white rice or whole wheat pasta. It also goes well with a whole wheat toast!